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Clinton Courts the Undecided

By Julie Bosman April 20, 2008 12:22 pmApril 20, 2008 12:22 pm

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton began her day of campaigning with a stop at Bonnet
Lane restaurant in Abington, Pa., in the battleground Philadelphia suburbs, where she conducted local interviews and shook hands with voters, many of them undecided.

Erika Wimms, of Abington, was eating breakfast with her family and said even though the primary was only two days away, she still couldn’t commit to either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

“I am so torn,” she said. “My husband and I have been watching the debates, we’ve been dialoguing about it over and over. They’re both so similar in what they want to do. I just can’t decide.”

Mrs. Clinton was headed next to Bethlehem, an hour and a half’s drive away, to the first of three rallies planned for Sunday.

Mark Nevins, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton in Pennsylvania, said Mrs. Clinton was focusing on areas populated by blue-collar, working-class voters, many in former steel towns that have suffered from the loss of manufacturing jobs.

I just realized that instead of referring to herself as a prizefighter or a housecleaner or a hunter, which are all inappropriate either because fighters in the Oval Office never accomplish anything (proof: Hillary’s dead on arrival 1993 health care proposals) or because they are just not true (when was the last time Hillary cleaned her house?), Hillary’s real moniker should be Kamikaze Pilot. Even though she cannot win, she is determined to destroy the Democratic Party’s ship and drown its leading candidate, Obama.

If they both want to implement the same policy, the choice comes down to how they intend to pull it off, improbable as that may be.

I don’t know about you, but, if, out of the blue, somebody publicly questioned my whole raison d’etre because I’m friendly with some neighbor who has some history, I’d be left speechless too. I want to get over history.

I find it very odd how many people fault Hillary for failing to reform health care when she is the only one to give it a serious try in the last two decades. She was defeated by Republicans who were very effective at lobbying and destroying health care for middle class Americans. How was that Hillary’s fault?

In contrast, Obama has a health care plan that is the least ambitious of all the Democratic candidates. It doesn’t cover everyone. Obama’s reasoning is that Republicans won’t like a universal plan, so we should start from a compromised position. It simply hopes that people will buy health insurance with money that isn’t there yet. We cannot afford Obama’s health care plan. We are rapidly losing the middle class as health care costs skyrocket. We need an ambitious plan like both Edwards and Hillary have. We will never reform health care by hoping and compromising.

Why not vote for someone who actually wants to reform the health care system?

Obama made a minor gaffe at a secretly recorded fundraiser and the NY Times’ Caucus blog articles were overwhelmingly dedicated to the gaffe. At one point there were literally 10 articles about it on the Caucus main page alone.

Hillary was recorded slamming the activist core of the Democratic party at a fundraiser, a story which broke two days ago elsewhere, and there is not yet one single article, let alone 10 on the main page as with Obama’s gaffe.

Hillary’s campaign has conceded that she made the remarks, and part of her justification for bashing MoveOn was her use of Karl Rove’s lie (and now Hillary’s too) that MoveOn opposed the invasion of Afghanistan.

i think we’re going to see a HUGE win for clinton in pennsylvania, bolstered primarily by “undecided” voters. these undecided voters, which now are about 9 percent, are all leaning towards hillary and when they’re in the voting booth, they’ll vote what they know.

Democrats in Pennsylvania have a unique opportunity to cast the decisive ballots in the Presidential election. It is time to end the politics of the past and start the healing. It is time to send a strong message to the entire country that, after a prolonged primary season, Democrats are now united and we are ready to lead the country forward. Obama 08.

Obama won’t commit to another debate next week. Maybe it’s because Hillary is a quicker study and puts him on the defensive every time. No matter who moderates or what questions they ask. Also, he says everyone who deserves it will have health care. So, who does and who doesn’t deserve health care, Mr. Obama?

It is easy to impugn journalists’ impartiality and integrity. One should credit NYT journalists with a modicum of judgment and common sense. NYT does not have to carry avery news items which is already available elsewhere. To paraphrase your words, “they apparently did not want to disclose a news item which was already disclosed elsewhere”. Nothing sinister here.

It feels as if this race has been going on for a lifetime now. How on earth can people still be undecided? Is it because they haven’t been paying attention until recently? And these are the people who are actually going to decide this election? Whatever they decide, the rest of us are going to have to live with it. If the general election results hinge on this kind of decision making, then we are in for a heap of trouble.

It’s becoming more and more clear to me that many Obama supporters are outright ignorant.

“Even though she cannot win, she is determined to destroy the Democratic Party’s ship and drown its leading candidate, Obama.” – Mary Carmela

Are you saying that the millions who have yet to vote in Pennsylvania and other states don’t deserve to cast their vote? Hillary has the right to stay in as long as she desires. People are angry because she isn’t just giving up right away and giving the nomination to Obama. That would be an unloyal thing for her to do to her supporters. Especially since there’s hundreds of delegates that have yet to be decided. I can guarantee that if this election was reversed the Obama supporters would be begging for him to stay in the race.

At least Hillary has the motivation to work to revamp American healthcare. It’s not her fault that she was overwhelmed by Republican lobbying in the 90’s. Obama wants to compromise as not to anger Republicans. His mediocre plan for health care would not cover a substantial amount of the population, therefore leaving millions uninsured and uncovered. We need a candidate whose not afraid to make a real difference and radically revamp our health care system for the better.

“I find it very odd how many people fault Hillary for failing to reform health care when she is the only one to give it a serious try in the last two decades.”

Um, that’s simply not the case.

What about the bi-partisan Dole-Moynihan health care bill? This would have gotten health care for Americans back in the 90s but didn’t make it – in part – because then First Lady Clinton wanted her plan or none at all.

Tim Russert asked her about it and she says “I’ve learned, I’ve got scars.” Yes, she’s the one that suffered, not the millions of Americans without health insurance.

What about Hatch-Kennedy S-CHIP? Another bi-partisan health insurance bill (this time successful) that gave health insurance to kids.

Both Obama’s and Clinton’s health care proposals are just that proposals. The benefits and costs of the final version will depend on how well he or she is able to rally both parties in Congress to this cause.

Being a fighter has its advantages but I think America needs someone who can use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to rally supporters and influence Congress rather than someone who simply tries to bully people to get their way.

pha 1:12pm Your history is missing something! Truth! In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected based on a number of things. The most important was to bring about Universal Health Care. He assigned that job to his wife. In the past she had been a corporate lawyer. She had no idea about how to set up a working system for developing a plan,held secret meetings, broke a number of laws in the process, demanded her way with professionals who knew better and basically was responsible for nothing being done. During this time, 1993-1994, the Congress was in the hands of the Democrats! The Republicans didn’t take over until 1995. Google it, the truth is out there. Bill Clinton wanted to reform the health care system in 1993, but his bad choice has delayed it 15 years. And you want to hand it over to the same person who failed???

I find it very odd how many people fault Hillary for failing to reform health care when she is the only one to give it a serious try in the last two decades. She was defeated by Republicans who were very effective at lobbying and destroying health care for middle class Americans. How was that Hillary’s fault?

— Posted by pha

Wrong. Hillary scuttled it because she wasn’t willing to work even with the members of her own party, let alone the Republicans.

Here’s a letter from Lincoln Chafee, the son of the late Senator John Chafee, which appeared in the Providence Journal on April 3:

“Laurie Rubiner wrote a very warm piece about my father, the late Sen. John Chafee, and his work with then-first lady Hillary Clinton on health and children’s issues (“The John Chafee-Hillary Clinton alliance,” Feb. 23). Yes, I agree that they shared a desire to bring positive changes, particularly with reform of our health-care system. Ultimately, though, it was Mrs. Clinton’s intransigence that doomed my father’s work on health care over many years, a debacle that brought him much anguish.

I believe that writer Carl Bernstein has it right in his book on Mrs. Clinton, A Woman in Charge.

He writes of the health-care debate in 1993 that “when Republican Sen. John Chafee and Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper introduced their own separate alternative proposals, the Clintons overlooked what may have been their best opportunity to compromise on a health-care plan. Chafee, a liberal Republican with no animus towards the Clintons or their politics, introduced his plan with 20 Republicans already pledged to support it in the Senate. House Republicans pitched a similar bill on the same day. And when Cooper and his principal House co-sponsor, Iowa Republican Fred Grandy, came forth with their bill, they were already endorsed by 46 other Democratic and Republican co-sponsors. Both Chafee’s and Cooper’s proposals would have given huge numbers of Americans adequate health-care coverage for the first time . . . and had enough support to make passage in the House and Senate likely. At such a pivotal juncture, Hillary could have thrown her support behind either bill. Later, Bill Clinton said perhaps he should have intervened.”

As the historic chances for passage of a bipartisan health-care-reform bill evaporated, Bernstein writes, “Hillary had earlier showed some willingness to compromise with Chafee, but when push came to shove, her unwillingness to compromise further undermined any chance of implementing real reform.”

For all her good intentions, Mrs. Clinton was unable to work with veteran friendly legislators and an opportunity was lost. Contrary to Ms. Rubiner’s hypothesis I am confident my father would not have supported Mrs. Clinton’s presidential candidacy.”

#3 – I give Hillary props for tackling the issue before anyone even realized it was an issue and I don’t think anyone doubts that she is serious about reforming our miserable health care system.

However, the problem is that she was so unyeilding, so divisive and the plan she put forward was so unpalatable to people needed to pass it that it died a horrible death FOR 2 DECADES!

The problem isn’t her position on the topic, the problem is that despite her claims for getting things done, her personality and style will ensure that nothing gets done. No one doubts her intentions, but I personally have serious reservations about her ability to gain enough consensus to get it done.

They were not minor. Far from it. They were instead yet again an example of the real, unscripted Obama — the Obama who is way, way out of touch with a majority of the American people.

The very idea to state that the American people are religious only because they are mad at Washington, D.C.! Or that they oppose further gun control because they’re mad at Washington, D.C.! (Obama, by the by, supports more gun control.) And the very idea that the Obama Campaign would attempt to downplay such outrageous beliefs by characterizing them as “minor gaffes.”

Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, did make a minor gaffe recently that the Obama Campaign jumped on to prove their absurd rant that she is a “liar.” Mrs. Clinton mistakenly said the plane taking her to Bosnia was under sniper fire when it landed. It was not and she apologized for misspeaking. Then it developed that the plane indeed was under the THREAT of sniper fire when it landed and a number of precautions were taken for the safety of the passengers, including Mrs. Clinton. So, what Mrs. Clinton should have said was “the plane that brought me to Bosnia landed under the THREAT of sniper fire.” That’s it. That’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton misspoke as she admitted and it indeed was a “minor gaffe.” (This didn’t stop Suzanne Malveaux, who has been assigned by CNN to dog Mrs. Clinton’s path, to report outright that Mrs. Clinton “lied about Bosnia.” So much for fair and knowledgeable reporting.)

No, sir. Mrs. Clinton’s recollection about the landing of her plane under sniper fire rather than under “threat” of sniper fire truly was a minor gaffe and thus tells us little, especially after the facts came out about the precautions taken to protect her safety prior to the landing of the plane.

By contrast, the questions put to Obama in the most recent ABC debate about his personal associations, his character, his personal beliefs, his statements at private fundraisers — the answers to these questions tell us a lot. Among other things, they tell us that Barack Obama is a very, very big risk and one that the American electorate would be more than wise in avoiding.

I read recently that last year Obama contributed approximately $20,000 to the Trinity church of Chicago. If Obama wants to provide financial support to the church of his profane pastor that is indeed his choice but it suggests ties to radical views that are of concern to me. Thus I cannot in good concience vote for him.

13.April 20th,
2008
1:57 pm #8 A. Bluteau……. That is an absolutely asinine argument considering the fact that they got the “bitter” story that they plastered the Caucus articles with from the exact same source!

Seriously, that is hypocrisy at its worst.

— Posted by g english

I like your “asinine” angle, quite appropriate for a Party whose symbol is a donkey.

You do know the answer to your “source” argument: a anti-Obama news item from this source is really a news item fit to print. It cannot be viewed as another piece of political (mis)information.

genglish Calling people bigots is a minor gaffe,come on. It was a closed fund raiser,he never though his words would be made public. He said antipathy(a strong dislike) to people who aren’t like them is bigotry. Forget the word bitter and focus on the words cling to.

#11 David K.
I have said many times in The Caucus that the campaign should continue on a discussion of substantive issues. However, Hillary has been campaigning for over a month now, making statements she fully knows are not true about Obama or that she fully knows are simply inflammatory, having nothing to do with Obama’s own character or values. Mathematically she cannot win. Hillary has no values other than getting herself elected, at whatever cost to the level of civic discourse, which this country desperately needs to put on a more fact-based, carefully reasoned level. So it is not a matter of giving everyone a vote — not enough votes are there for her in the remaining contests.
As to her health care bill in 1993, both parties in Congress walked away from it, Democrats as well as Republicans, because she presented it in her fighting mode, on a take it or leave it basis. Both parties then simply left it. She has shown in this campaign that she didn’t learn from that experience, that you can’t come out as President fighting, otherwise everyone in Washington ignores you. In 2009 we will need reconcilation as a nation and as a part of the rest of the world. Hillary has made herself so divisive, she won’t be able to lead us in healing our national wounds or inspire us to sacrifice, or to convince despotic countries to relax a bit and become more democratic. (Witness her China advisor resigning last week over her bombastic threats on China.)

So, David, I am not speaking out of ignorance. Give me some credit next time for some knowledge of past and current history and for the ability to count.

According to Rendell on Face the Nation this morning, Pennsylvania typically has close races. Unfortunately, Clinton surrogates, and pundits who support Obama, have raised the bar for her and claimed she must win “big” (whatever that means).

On the other hand, throughout this race, “undecideds” have typically gone to Clinton because of the “Bradley effect”–voters who are NOT racist do not want to be perceived as such by declaring their support for Clinton. Given the Obama camp’s predilection for casting everything negative about him as a racial slur, this Bradley effect has probably been magnified in this primary and elsewhere.

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